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Pennsylvania’s Montgomery County Clerk has been ordered by a judge to stop issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples. The order comes after briefing and a hearing.

The judge said only courts can decide whether a statute, such as Pennsylvania’s anti-gay marriage statute, is valid:

After considering nearly 500 pages of legal briefings and over an hour’s testimony Sept. 4 in Harrisburg, President Judge Dan Pellegrini today ordered Hanes to stop issuing the licenses. “A clerk of courts has not been given the discretion to decide … whether the statute he or she is charged to enforce is a good idea or bad one, constitutional or not. Only courts have the power to make that decision,” Pellegrini wrote.

The ruling doesn’t appear to address whether marriages already performed in the county will remain valid.

[…] v. Wolf this week. Only the Montgomery County Clerk has been prohibited from doing so: he was ordered by a state court judge to stop issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples, and to comply with state law, back in […]